Medicinal Cannabis could be Legally Available by 2016

Medicinal cannabis could be legally grown and prescribed to patients as early as next year under a cross party bill that has attracted initial support from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Greens leader, senator Richard Di Natale, announced on Monday that the bill to create a regulator for medicinal cannabis for certain conditions had been drafted and would be put before the Senate for a vote in November.

While Victoria and NSW state governments had indicated that they wanted to legalise medicinal cannabis, a federal regulatory scheme was required to do this: “We need national laws to make sure we can licence growers … that doctors can prescribe this and that the medication gets in the hands of patients who need it.”